dennisgibson wrote:
sent one last email to him. i told him to send me the money to ship it back along with an address and I'd mail it to him. i also said I'm not a storage service and if i don't hear back from him i'll assume he no longer wants the lens.

that's the last attempt i'm going to make, and it's probably more of an effort than i should be making after he tried to screw me.

I think that should do it. No need to do anything more. As for the gift tax comment, in the US the gift tax is imposed on the person giving the gift unless the recipient agrees to pay the tax. So no worry even if it were a gift.